Sunday, February 14, 2016

This is a piece I did for a Dragonball Z Art Show. It was in a Bar Basic in Downtown San Diego. A very fun show run by Thumbprint Art Gallery.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS5. I make sure to seperate out the character layer from the background layer. I wanted to put a background, but I didn't get the time.

Scenario: Cell lost his ability to regenerate cells, and develops a tech to go after Goku. . Thats the scenario I had in my mind when I was doing this. :D For more art, check out my youtube videos at: Enzyme Art

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Growing up and going through
several different art schools, I’ve seen A LOT of new people come and go
through the processes of learning drawing and painting. People progress at
different rates because of other obligations like work or school, and the interest
level in some is higher than in others. But there is always that one guy/girl
in the class – that one person that
seems to start right where you are, but quickly rockets ahead of everyone else.
They seem to get good by leaps and bounds. How did they do that? Is it genetic?
Are they just putting in more hours?

While some people really do put in
the hours, I’ve noticed something else that an art prodigy always has mentally.
Here it is >>> they never hesitate to try something< <<.

They never hesitate to draw another
subject or try a different medium. If they see something in a video on art they
will try it immediately without procrastination.The results will be inconsistent, but they’ll
start to build up until their best piece now is their worst piece several years
from now.

So how can you apply this? Here a few things I recommend:

1)If
you aren’t doing so already, try a harder medium out. If you’ve never sketched
with anything other than pencil, try ballpoint pen. If you’re using ball point
pen, try a fountain pen. If you’ve never done painting in your life, try that
out.

One of my closest friends has
hardly sketched with anything other than a pencil because he’s afraid of not
being able to erase. We’re literally pushing him to try extendedly sketching
with a pen.Using another “less
forgiving medium” will give your perspective and present you with new
challenges you never thought about. When you use a harder medium, you’ll also find,
going back to your old medium, that it’s much easier.The mule gets stuck in the mud – don’t be a
mule. Be a race horse, run like the wind.

2)Don’t
cherish your drawings. It’s easy to get attached your drawings. While I think
you should save all your drawings, I don’t think you should take them too
seriously, especially while you are in a stage of trying to improve. Cherishing
your drawings in the moment will hold you back. You might develop fear,
thinking you “don’t want to ruin your drawing,” so it sits there unfinished for
months. Which brings me to the third thing…

3)Finish
your sketches! When you are trying things out and pushing yourself to do more,
be careful of falling into the habit of not finishing anything you do. Doing so
can create bad habits that will really hinder you in the future. And it’s going
to be hard to get rid of that habit. It’s a habit where you sketch and about 60%
through you get tired and start a new sketch.

Don’t forget to try things out and
put some miles on that car. Just do; don’t over-think. It can be tough to come
outside your comfort zone, but your overall goal is to be a well-rounded
artist. You want to have nothing you are “totally weak” on. This is a key to
working in the art field as a career. How to Draw

Sunday, December 27, 2015

This is a final for a class at Concept Design Academy in Pasadena. The project was to pick any animal and do turn-arounds, close ups and gestures. I picked an animal I thought nobody would pick. I chose the Platypus. It moves more like a lizard, than a beaver. does not look like it has a very flexible spine. Helps in my Draw Fantasy Art and Easy Things to Draw Channel.

Monday, December 21, 2015

I’ve always had a hard time
learning. When I was younger, my fourth grade teacher told my mom that I was
the kind of child that “needed to hear things over and over to understand.”I always found learning to generally be
boring, at least when it came to reading a textbook. I got into art because I
felt it was more “hands on” learning. It was something I could excel in by
actually doing the activity. When I
started doing art, there was minimal textbook-style learning. As I got into it
more complex aspects of art, though, I realized that if I wanted to keep
growing as an artist, I would have to accept that even art had aspects that I
would have to learn the boring, old-fashioned way. Trying to learn things like
anatomy, perspective, and other terminologies made me feel like I was back in
math class: it was so immensely hard for me to memorize names and properties and
make them second nature.

Now, I want to point out the one
thing I’ve noticed about nearly EVERY top artist that I’ve met, or seen a video
from. The one thing they have all had in common is their addiction to learning.
Every one of them has had some fascination with the world, with history, with
animals, or the solar system. They are addicted to learning, and not just
because they’re all book nerds that don’t get bored as easily as I do – but because
the knowledge they gain appears in their projects.

Cymothoa exigu

Here’s what I mean. My teacher one
time was telling us about Cymothoa exigu. This isn’t just a boring word to copy down and
define - this is a real parasitic louse that goes into a fish through its gills,
severs the blood vessels to the tongue until the tongue falls off, and then
attaches itself to the stub and becomes the replacement for the fishes tongue.
Not only is that interesting, it’s a real, useable factoid that would be great
inspiration to use in a comic, video game, or illustration.

So if you’re like me
and you find it hard to stay interested when learning something, here are 3
things that made all the difference to me personally:

1)Watch something more than once

When I watch a
documentary on YouTube or Netflix that I feel is important, I immediately press
the play button again once it’s over. I tend to only retain about 25% of
whatever I watched on the first view, if that. If I watch a 2 hour documentary
on color, and how it’s used in photography and painting, I’ll watch the entire
thing over again – immediately or the day after. The second time seeing it is almost
like the first time ever; I’ll catch different details that I didn’t hear the
first time. And, if necessary, I’ll watch it a third time while drawing
something unrelated. That way I can listen to it, but still get some separate
work done. If you don’t know where to start, I suggest podcasts on history and
science as great current sources.

2)Take notes on everything

I take notes on
any lectures in my art class and for important art videos. I take them down by
hand while hearing them, and then I go home and type them again into my
computer and save them in a file that I’m able to find again. I have a folder
in my computer labeled “art notes,” and I create sub-folders with more specific
topics. Writing by hand and then later transferring those notes manually into
my computer makes sure I go over that information 2 times at the very least.
Most people never do the second part and never look at the notes again.
Actively look back on a random file you saved and skim the information. You
will learn sooo much.

3)Learn to see the “coolness” in the natural
world

If you really look
at a crocodile, it’s as amazing as most of the dinosaurs in Jurassic park. They
have a bite force of 3,700 psi and have slit eyes. Chimps are 5 times stronger
than a person. Some mountain ranges were formed from giant plates around the
earth that smashed together. Fire tornadoes exist. The list goes on: there are
really amazing things in the natural world and in history. Really reminding
myself of this has made me love learning about new things. The more you learn,
the easier it gets to learn.

Killer Croc

Really though - you’ll
start to find that the more you learn and the more you memorize, the more that
you’ll start to like it. It’s like a flicker inside you, that you nurture until
it’s a giant flame. Plus with all your new knowledge, you’ll have to coolest
party conversations.

Places to start learning for the Multi-tasker: Podcasts, audio books on YouTube,
documentaries on Netflix. Easy Things to Draw.

Monday, December 14, 2015

So drawing animals from imagination has never been my
strength. It’s always something I've avoided. This is strange because I really
liked to draw monsters, but completely shunned learning animal anatomy because
I considered it boring and hard.

When you’re drawing, you have the habit to stay in your
current lane – you stick to what you’re good at and continuously hammer it in.
The issue with that is that it’s not helping you in any way. All you’re doing
is going through the same motions you've done before and you aren't really
learning anything new.A concept artist,
Carlo Arellano, once told me it’s basically masturbation when you do that – it
feels good drawing something you know you’re already good at.

When you’re learning to draw anything new, it’s necessary to
go through a phase of boring learning. It’s just a necessary phase. Its a big part on how to draw fantasy art. If you’re
good at drawing a particular thing, your ego tells you that you are "past"
doing the boring stuff – that you already did your time.But if you listen to your ego here, you’re
going to end up with an imbalance of skill. This is a situation where, for
example, someone’s human subjects look amazing, but their backgrounds are
terrible, or vice versa. Ultimately, you don’t want this to be you – you want
to be a well-rounded artist.

Studies done for Joe Weatherly Construction Sketches

So, in this post, I wanted to talk about my personal progression
into being a more well-rounded artist. Five months ago, my animals were at a
beginner’s level, but as of right now, they are “decent.” And that, to me, is
incredibly exciting! I haven't learned to draw anything new in five years or
more. I was stuck in a rut.

I used to draw animals from a picture the same way I drew a
vase. I could copy, but I could never invent.I had no understanding of what was going on underneath the fur, and I
couldn't understand their skeletal structures, even by just glancing at an
anatomy chart. I couldn't wrap my head around what was going on, ESPECIALLY
when they started moving.

I got some decent images in the past from my method of copying,
but my invention was terrrrrrrrible. I knew it was a gap in my knowledge that I
needed to at least try to fill.

This is a drawing I did five months ago.

It’s an attempt at
a creature invention. Looks like crapola. I can't draw hooves to save my life.
The bumps in the back are just wild guesses as to what they are. The leg is way
too coiled up, more so resembling a human leg than a horse’s. The nostril is just a hole in his
face.

This is a drawing 4 months later. It’s another invention. It’s
a much improved creature invention. I still have a ways to go, but the
difference in understanding is monumental.

Let me go over the three things I felt made the most
difference for me:

1) On a horse or big cat, the scapula is on the side. This
should be an obvious, but it was something I wasn’t paying enough attention to.
Humans and primates have their scapulae on their back, attached to the
clavicle. Having the scapulae be on an animal’s sides allows for fast mobility.

2) Learning Basic Pivot Points: I learned the bare, basic
structure of a prey animal and a predatory big cat. Basically, I learned where
the pivot points were on these forms and committed those to memory. Once I did
that, I tried finding those pivot points on real images of big cats and prey
animals like deer, giraffes, lamas, horses, donkeys, etc.Tracing these pivot points over pictures of
the real animals made the BIGGEST difference. I did it 30 times, and still do
it for warm up. It helps you really internalize proportions from real life.

These are a Few Images I traced over, to find and practice construction and pivot points.

3) Comparing anatomy: I already had a decent understanding
of human anatomy coming into this. Animal pivot points were the hardest part
for me, and once I felt decently comfortable with them, the anatomy seemed
simpler to compare to the human anatomy I was already familiar with. From an
artistic standpoint, horses and tigers have pretty much most of the same
muscles we have. They have triceps, a gluteus maximus, phalanges, humerus, ect.
These muscles and bones are just in completely different proportions based on how
they were evolved to be used.

Sketches I did recently from live animals at the San Diego Zoo

So there you have it. Those are the three biggest things
that helped me out in drawing outside my comfort zone. I'm still a novice, but I
really feel like I'm on a moving path to getting better now. -Stay Creative!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Art Show Hostel Takeover.
I did my first art show in about a year or 2. It was a very fun experience. The art show was held in a hostel in downtown San Diego. The turnout was great and I met a lot of awesome artists.

Monday, July 1, 2013

If Cell from DBZ Swallowed a Ninja Turtle - Draw Fantasy Art
Here is a painting I did for fun. Its a what-if scenario. I Crossed Cell from Dragonball Z with a Ninja Turtle.
Not sure which ninja turtle though. I did it in photoshop CS5. For me it was one of those easy things to draw because I liked it so much. Soon I'm planning to have original paintings for sale.
I want to do a series of mixtures. I'm just thinking up new ideas. Which characters do you think I should combine?

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